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Introduction: We report an investigation on collaboration practices in research papers published in the most prestigious English-medium astrophysics journals. Method: We propose an evaluation method based on three numerical indicators to study and compare, in absolute terms, three different types of collaboration (international, national and local) and authors' mobility on the basis of co-authorship. Analysis: We analysed 300 randomly selected research papers in three different time periods and used the student's t-test to determine whether the paired two-sample differences observed were statistically significant or not. Results: International collaboration is more common than national and local collaboration. International, national and local authors' mobility and intra-national collaboration do not seriously affect the indicators of the principal levels of collaboration. International collaboration and authors' mobility are more relevant for authors publishing in European journals, whereas national and intra-national collaboration and national mobility are more important for authors publishing in US journals. Conclusions: We explain the observed differences and patterns in terms of the specific scope of each journal and the socio-economic and political situation in both geographic contexts (Europe and the USA). Our study provides a global picture of collaboration practices in astrophysics and its possible application to many other sciences and fields would undoubtedly help bring into focus the really big issues for overall research management and policy.

Objectives: To examine evidence from studies exploring the relationship between childhood obesity and educational attainment. Design: A systematic review of secondary analyses and observational studies published in English after 1997 examining attainment as measured by grade point average or other validated measure, in children aged 6 to 16 years, in high-income countries. Methods: Eleven databases from the fields of public health, education and social science were searched, along with 19 specialist registers and catalogues. Hand searching of relevant journals, contacting of experts and citation searching were undertaken. Two reviewers used standardized tools to independently carry out data extraction and assess the quality of included studies. Evidence was synthesized in a narrative summary. Results: Twenty-nine studies were identified for inclusion. Overall, the evidence suggested that higher weight is weakly associated with lower educational attainment among children and young people. Differences between average attainment of overweight and non-overweight children were marginal, with potentially negligible real-world implications for test scores. Limited evidence suggested that little variation in achievement was explained by weight status alone. Almost half the studies found that other factors, such as socioeconomic status, may better explain much of the negative association between obesity and attainment. Conclusion: Theoretical and methodological inconsistencies were evident both within and between many of the studies. As such, the results of the included studies must be interpreted with caution. If the negative association between obesity and attainment is accepted, it still remains doubtful whether obesity is exerting a socially important effect upon educational attainment.

This empirical research investigates subscription price variations of scholarly journals in five business subject-specific areas using the semilogarithmic regression model. It has two main purposes. The first is to address the unsettled debate over whether or not and to what extent commercial publishers reap monopoly profits by overcharging academic libraries for scholarly journals they subscribe to. The second is to provide librarians with scholarly journal price estimates and to test publication factors that affect journal prices. The subject-specific approach used in this study provides more accurate estimates for serial budgeting and management. The findings show that in all cases the coefficient of the commercial publisher variable is statistically significant at a very high level (p less than 0.0001). In most cases, the coefficients of other observed variables are also significant, and scholarly journal prices vary significantly among the business subject-specific areas. (Contains 11 tables.)

Context: Athletes enter injury rehabilitation with certain expectations about the recovery process, outcomes, and the professional providing treatment. Their expectations influence the effectiveness of the assistance received and affect the overall rehabilitation process. Expectations may vary depending on numerous factors such as sport experience, gender, sport type, and cultural background. Unfortunately, limited information is available on athletes' expectations about sport-injury rehabilitation. Objective: To examine possible differences in athletes' expectations about sport-injury rehabilitation based on their country of residence and type of sport (contact vs noncontact). Design: Cross-sectional. Setting: Recreational, college, and professional athletes from the US, UK, and Finland were surveyed. Participants: Of the 1209 athletes ranging from 12 to 80 y of age (mean 23.46 ± 7.91), 529 US [80%], 253 UK [86%], and 199 Finnish [82%] athletes provided details of their geographical location and were included in the final analyses. Main Outcome Measures: The Expectations About Athletic Training (EAAT) questionnaire was used to determine athletes' expectations about personal commitment, facilitative conditions, and the expertise of the sports-medicine professional (SMP). Results: A 3 x 2 MANCOVA revealed significant main effects for country (P = .0001, ηp² = .055) and sport type (P = .0001, ηp² = .023). Specifically, US athletes were found to have higher expectations of personal commitment and facilitative conditions than their UK and Finnish counterparts. Athletes participating in contact sports had higher expectations of facilitative conditions and the expertise of the SMP than did athletes participating in noncontact sports. Conclusions: SMPs, especially those in the US, should consider the sport and environment when providing services. In addition, SMPs need to highlight and demonstrate their expertise during the rehabilitation process, especially for those who compete in contact sports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been shown that disadvantaged groups who endorse system‐justifying beliefs tend to internalize their state of inferiority by expressing ingroup derogation and opposing collective action for change. In the present research, we recruited women – as disadvantaged group – from different countries (the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy) and examined whether their moral conviction against gender inequality, as an absolute stance that does not tolerate any violation, may interact with and overpower system‐justifying beliefs. Results from three studies provided support for our hypotheses. First, when women held strong moral conviction, they expressed higher identification with their disadvantaged ingroup and, in turn, higher collective action intentions, independent of system‐justifying beliefs. Second, when women held weak moral conviction, higher system‐justifying beliefs reduced women's ingroup identification and, in turn, undermined their collective action intentions. This support is found across different contexts of gender inequality (the gender leadership gap, the gender pay gap, and the gender power imbalance), using different methodological approaches (online survey, online experiment, laboratory experiment). Implications, limits, and future directions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the InCites tool of Thomson Reuters, this study compares normalized citation impact values calculated for China, Japan, France, Germany, United States, and the UK throughout the time period from 1981 to 2010. InCites offers a unique opportunity to study the normalized citation impacts of countries using (i) a long publication window (1981 to 2010), (ii) a differentiation in (broad or more narrow) subject areas, and (iii) allowing for the use of statistical procedures in order to obtain an insightful investigation of national citation trends across the years. Using four broad categories, our results show significantly increasing trends in citation impact values for France, the UK, and especially Germany across the last thirty years in all areas. The citation impact of papers from China is still at a relatively low level (mostly below the world average), but the country follows an increasing trend line. The USA exhibits a stable pattern of high citation impact values across the years. With small impact differences between the publication years, the US trend is increasing in engineering and technology but decreasing in medical and health sciences as well as in agricultural sciences. Similar to the USA, Japan follows increasing as well as decreasing trends in different subject areas, but the variability across the years is small. In most of the years, papers from Japan perform below or approximately at the world average in each subject area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Although a high intake of some flavonoid subclasses may reduce cardiovascular disease mortality, data regarding the in vivo mechanisms of action are limited. Objective: We examined associations between habitual flavonoid intakes and direct measures of arterial stiffness, central blood pressure, and atherosclerosis. Design: In a cross-sectional study of 1898 women aged 18-75 γ from the TwinsUK registry, intakes of total flavonoids and their subclasses (flavanones, anthocyanins, flavan-3-ols, polymers, flavo- nols, and flavones) were calculated from validated food-frequency questionnaires by using an updated and extended USDA database. Direct measures of arterial stiffness and atherosclerosis included central systolic blood pressure (cSBP), central diastolic blood pressure, mean arterial pressure (MAP), augmentation index, pulse wave velocity (PWV), and intima-media thickness. Results: In multivariate analyses, a higher anthocyanin intake was associated with significantly lower cSBP (mean ± SE: -3.0 ± 1.4 mm Hg for quintile 5 compared with quintile 1; P-trend = 0.02), MAP (-2.3 ± 1.2 mm Hg for quintile 5 compared with quintile 1; />-trend = 0.04), and PWV (-0.4 ± 0.2 m/s for quintile 5 compared with quintile 1 ; P-trend = 0.04), whereas a higher flavone intake was associated with a lower PWV (-0.4 ± 0.2 m/s for quintile 5 compared with quintile 1 ; P-trend = 0.04). Although a higher wine and berry intake was associated with a lower PWV, no associations were observed for total and other flavonoid subclasses. Conclusions: These data, which include direct measures of arterial stiffness and thickness, suggest that higher intake of anthocyanins and flavones are inversely associated with lower arterial stiffness. The intakes of anthocyanins associated with these findings could be incorporated into the diet by the consumption of 1-2 portions of berries daily and are, therefore, relevant for public health strategies to reduce cardiovascular disease risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This study from the U.S.A. aimed to find out how often confidence intervals are used when reporting dermatology research. Confidence intervals relate to two values ('intervals') that the researchers, using data analysis, believe that the actual, true value will fall within. A 95% confidence interval indicates that if an experiment were repeated 100 times, and a 95% confidence interval was calculated each time, 95 of the intervals would contain the true value while five of the intervals would not contain the true value. A confidence interval might be used when you want to estimate something about a very large number of people, and can therefore only use a sample of those people. For example, if you want to know how many people in the UK have dry skin, you cannot ask every person, so you use a sample and then calculate a range for the mean number of people in your sample who have dry skin. As the sample is never going to be an exact representation of the whole population, you might say that you are 95% confident that the mean number of people in the UK with dry skin is, for example, between 20% and 30%. Confidence intervals help readers understand both the statistical significance and the clinical significance more easily. Most modern statistical software packages conveniently calculate confidence intervals and provide an intuitive way to understand study results. The authors collected dermatology articles from a variety of major dermatology journals as well as dermatology articles from the New England Journal of Medicine over the past decade. The authors found that reporting of this important metric is disappointingly low in dermatology journals, with only 1 in 5 articles containing confidence intervals, which was significantly lower than reporting in the New England Journal of Medicine. Articles published more recently were more likely to report confidence intervals. After controlling for factors like type of study and year of publication, the New England Journal of Medicine still reported confidence intervals more frequently. This is likely due to their extremely rigorous statistical peer review process. While such strict requirements cannot be adopted by all journals, increased awareness of this simple metric could significantly improve the statistical reporting of the dermatology literature. We urge dermatology researchers to include this important metric in their findings. Likewise, we recommend improved statistical training as part of dermatology residency training. Linked Article: Hopkins et al. Br J Dermatol 2019; 180:910–915 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]